Friday, January 22, 2016

Turn the other WHAT?

Turn the other what?
One of the great things about getting to be my age (73) is that you don’t have to impress anyone, and you can pretty much say what you want to and no one will give you much grief.
I find it somewhat therapeutic to vent my frustration with life around me and hope you agree or, at least, challenge me if you believe what I say contrary to your thoughts.
First off, I am a card-carrying conservative Christian, white male who is heterosexual and a supporter of the second amendment. Now that sentence should give you an idea of where I am going with this article.
Let me say that I do not care if you want to fall in love with someone of your same sex, a chicken or a tree. If you wish to be married to some tall oak or a boy named Sue, then more power to you. Just leave me out of it and don’t always rub it in my face and try to change my mind…As far as I am concerned it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, but this is your business, not mine.
The Christian religion suffers from a bad case of public relations. We are viewed by the world as the religion of the ‘dont's’ not the ‘do’s’. We need to change this image and show people what we are about. This is a time for us to exercise the motto of ‘hate the sin…love the sinner.’ We can indeed show compassion to anyone in need without having to agree with them about their beliefs. I participate in a program to send 1,000’s of books to various countries around the world. We hope that the recipients of these books will ask themselves who sent them and why. As a Christian, I think this is my duty.
Conservatives are often blamed and portrayed as non-caring individuals. I take exception with that description. For example, I believe all of us want a better education system for our children. But, let’s face it, 2 + 2 is 4, not just what you want it to be. The kids growing up in India and China have to learn these things to escape their circles of poverty; there is no prize for ‘showing up’ or for ‘great effort.' These societies want their youngsters to learn to compete in the global market. They do not just pass them from one grade to the next to avoid any emotional trauma to their sensitive psyche. Conservatives also want comprehensive immigration policies to be put into effect. No one that I know of objects to anyone wanting to come to this country of ours to work and contribute to our gross domestic product. We do object to those wanting to get here and abusing the system and being a permanent taker and not a giver. We want to give all a hand up but not a lifelong handout. There is a difference.
Erasing history or eliminating it will not make it go away. Do we all agree that slavery was wrong? Of course, we do. Wrong and stupid, but it happened. If I go to Ancestor.com and look up my long dead relatives, I don’t find any plantation owners or slave masters. I find carpenters, laborers, ministers and poor guys trying to eke out a living, not some mint julip, cigar smoking slave owners. Why blame me for the sins of those who are long dead and buried? If someone wants to honor some relative by displaying a Confederate flag, let him. On the same hand if someone displayed a Nazi flag or a Black Panthers flag….they are free to do so. I may not want to associate with you for this reason, but these are our choices aren’t they? You have a right to believe in what you want and so do I. the occurrence of history cannot be erased, but it can be prevented from happening again.
If we were to share a portion of the collective blame, then I suggest we look no further that the plight of the American Indian or Native American. This group of humanity does deserve our attention and more support for the wrongs that have been given to them. Here again, I suggest we help them escape their circle of poverty and illiteracy by education and business opportunities that are uncorrupted. We cannot change the past, but we can change the future.
In short I believe we all want the same for our country and its citizens. If we would get our pride and our greed out of the way and look at how we can serve the common good rather than our self-serving interests, we could eliminate a large amount of the ills we struggle with on a daily basis in this country.
It is time for the conservative Christians to stand up, straighten out their backbones and voice their opposition to the political correctness and pandering that has been going on for entirely too long. We do not have to cut off the heads of those who oppose us, but we do have to rise out of our recliners and take a stand for what we believe in and not just turn the other cheek forever.
Jesus was a believer in meekness, not weakness. There is a difference.
Peary Perry
pperry@pearyperry.com